Africa Center for Strategic Studies

Joint Forces Quarterly, a publication of National Defense University Press, has reprinted Father Clement Mweyang Aapengnuo’s article entitled “Misinterpreting Ethnic Conflicts in Africa,” which was originally published as Africa Center for Strategic Studies’ Africa Security Brief No. 4. [PDF]

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies continues to add to its expanding series of Africa Security Briefs. In the latest Brief, “Misinterpreting Ethnic Conflicts in Africa” , Father Clement Mweyang Aapengnuo, a former Director of the Center for Conflict Transformation and Peace Studies in Ghana and a doctoral student in the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, writes that ethnic conflicts in Africa are often portrayed as having ages-old origins with little prospects for resolution. His article challenges that notion arguing that a re-diagnosis of the underlying drivers to ethnic violence can lead to more effective and sustainable responses. Dr. Joseph Siegle , Africa Center Director of Research, said, “Father Aapengnuo’s article is a valuable addition to the body of literature that advances the pressing need to redirect our conflict mitigation efforts to the political triggers of conflict.” The Africa Center’s Africa Center Briefs are concise analyses and actionable recommendations of critical security challenges facing Africa.

Ethnocentrism and Communal Conflict in Africa. York Shaw-Taylor, Racism Review, 2009. Civil wars and communal conflict in Africa are often attributed to the strength and prevalence of ethnic identity over national or civic identity and its attendant affect on political and social allegiances. Yet a review of recent survey data in several African countries is unable to validate this popular proposition. [HTML]

Title: Deciphering Disorder in Africa: Is Identity the Key? Crawford Young. World Politics, 2002 Noted Africa-watcher Crawford Young reviews five books that examine the role of identity in recent conflicts in Liberia, Rwanda, Algeria, and elsewhere. While competing identities certainly can influence conflict, they are just one factor among many that cause and perpetuate them. [PDF]

Ethnicity, Insurgency and Civil Wars. By James Fearon and David Laitin. APSR, 2003. The authors counter the influential claim that civil wars have proliferated after the end of the Cold War by presenting data suggesting civil wars since the 1990s have their roots in conflicts from the 1950s and 1960s.